jmj

Finals (according to another board): 1 Round Rock 2 Bowie 3 Dripping Springs 4 Anderson 5 Akins 6 Pflugerville 7 Connally 8 O'Connor 9 Westwood 10 Vista Ridge

5A prelims: Percussion - Round Rock Guard - Anderson Marching - Bowie Music - Bowie 3rd- Anderson 2nd- Round Rock 1st- Bowie Finalists: Bowie Round Rock Anderson Vista Ridge Connally Pflugerville Dripping Springs Akins O'Connor Westwood

I must second the !! on Vandegrift. And, yay for 2 Leander ISD schools in the top 5! Also, yay for the return of Reagan!

-The reascension of Ronald Reagan. Will once again be the top North East ISD school and make the 5A state finals. -Leander will advance to 5A state for the first time since 2000. Churchill will not advance to 5A state for the first time in I can't remember. -Area D advancing to 5A State Will Be (in placement order): *Bowie *Ronald Reagan *Pflugerville *Leander *Westlake -Area B advancing to 5A State Will Be (in placement order): *Marcus *Hebron *Bell *Legacy *Colleyville Heritage

This is very interesting. Despite the final results, Cedar Park and Bowie went 1-2 in both Music and Visual. It's interesting that if they had added the ordinals instead of adding the raw scores, Cedar Park would have been first with a total of 8 (1+2+1+4) and Bowie and Round Rock would have tied for 2nd with a total of 10. It appears to be the quite low Color Guard score that really kept Cedar Park from ranking higher. I am just thrilled that so many of our area schools are putting on such quality shows this early in the season! I know that McNeil and Cedar Park, along with Leander and Vandegrift will represent Central Texas very well next week at BOA at The Woodlands. Good luck to you all!

Schedule Located! http://www.dragonband.com/WestlakePerfSched2010.pdf

The Austin American-Statesman is doing a Battle of The Bands contest this year and each week will have videos from 2 bands (footage captured at the football game) and a vote for the best band. This week is Bowie and Pflugerville. According to this, Bowie's show is called The Revolutionary and is the music of Tchaikovsky and I definitely heard a big portion of Romeo and Juliet. It doesn't say what Pflugerville's show is called. Anyway, you can watch them both at the below link. I think Bowie sounds pretty fantastic already - some beautiful balanced hits in the brass and check out that glorious woodwind run at around 2:02 in the video. Pflugerville also sounding nice and lots of drill on the field for sooo early in the season. http://www.statesman.com/sports/highschool/battleofthebands/

Major congratulations to all the Texas bands! Here's to Bell, Marcus, The Woodlands, and Bowie! Thank you all for representing our state so well! And, major props to Marcus for winning Music both times!! You are all amazing! But really, BOA, Marcus only in 4th, really?!

Marcus - What a production! The guard, trees, flowers, donkey, etc. all help to portray A Midsummer Night

Thank you for posting this video of Legacy! I have never seen your band before and I wish that I had seen this show in person. Cool concept! Loved the waves at the beginning! Well marched and played and you played Marriage of Figaro which is too cool. At times there I felt like I was watching old school Spring or Westfield. Congratulations on your season!

I really enjoyed Bell this year. Such a pretty show and marched and played beautifully. Though I still miss the old Bell circa 2000-2002. Bell's 2000 show, "King of Kings" remains for me my absolute favorite marching show of all time. From the suicide block and crazy trumpet runs at the beginning to the gorgeous flute and french horn solos to the "rack attack" and that final massive 4-to-5 jazz run of colliding blocks at the end, this show had it all.

Great job to all the bands out at the (very cold) Westlake contest today! CP and Bowie - You are are in a class by yourselves. I so enjoyed your performances. Musical performance from Cedar Park tonight was outstanding. As always, you blow me away with your power and intensity. Soloists were super - love the trumpet trio at the beginning of the 4th mvmt and the huge hit by the whole band that comes thereafter. They really make Scheherezade come alive! Bowie - Such incredible demand of drill. So impressive is how many notes are played on the move while the band is doing very difficult maneuvers. Loved the 4-to-5 jazz run and pyramid with the all-seeing eye set, too. The guard with the hooded capes is quite cool, as well. The body carriage of the individuals is really stellar - the shoulders are back and the toes are high from every single person. Well done! Clements - Thanks for making the trip all the long way to Austin! It was a real treat for us Austin metro peeps to get to see a Houston-area band at a local contest. Really lovely performance in finals! I think my MVP section of the night must go to the Clements flutes (which I think there were at least 30) - flutes were so clean, so clear and played so many notes! Superb! Akins - Great focused intense performance! Loved the rotating diamond block set. This was marched grandly. Some beautiful soloists and great woodwind licks in here, too! The theme and stage curtain/box props were well utilized. I loved the end when all of the band members got swept up behind the stage curtains. Really great! Westlake's Exhibition - Well I'm a big sucker for Sorcerer's Apprentice, Also Sprach Zarathustra, and Festive Overture, which you played all of them very nicely! The ending set with the colorguard all running to contribute their colored block to the creation of the solved Rubic's cube was a great moment! Everybody - be proud of the way you marched and played today! You made me happy! Good luck to all of the bands at their upcoming UIL contests!

Finalists: O'Connor Akins Bowie Pflugerville Vista Ridge Cedar Park Round Rock Clements (Sugar Land) Dripping Springs Hendrickson 5A Prelims: high music: Cedar Park high marching: Bowie 3rd- Clements 87.05 2nd- Bowie 89.0125 1st - Cedar Park 89.1 soooo close between CP and Bowie - they are both sooo amazing. CP's music was spot on and Bowie's visual package is quite incredible. All bands today have been soo entertaining! Good job to all!

I had an awesome time yesterday! Great job everyone! I must give props to the Area D bands

Great job by all last night. I was entertained by EVERY BAND! Makes me proud to be from the Lone Star State. 2 questions regarding repertoire: 1. Can someone tell us each of the pieces/composers that comprise the Marcus show, please? 2. I thought that Bells show was also going to feature Debussy's The Engulfed Cathedral. I kept waiting for it, but I never heard it. Was it there and I just missed it?

Actually, Georgetown is doing "The Rise and Fall of Rome." It's a Key Poulan original composition. You've probably heard other bands play it. It's been out for several years.

In addition to having a fantastic guard performance, Churchill's musical performance this year was tremendous. I have played Vincent Persichetti's music in concert band and it is very difficult to play sitting down--let alone marching it. They pulled it off very well. A particular highlight is Churchill's woodwinds during Masquerade for Band. Very, very nice moments.

Area D Results: Advancing to State: Akins Bowie Cedar Park Churchill Reagan 1st Alt. Leander 2nd Alt. Westlake

Finals scores from the Cedar Park Timberwolf Marching Festival. 1. Akins-89.05 2. Round Rock-84.5 3. Georgetown 83.6 4. Westwood- 80.2 5. Vista Ridge- 78.4 6. Leander- 78.35 7. Seguin- 74.7 8. Lake Travis- 74.05 9. Bryan- 58.65 10. Robstown- 58.6 11. Lampasas 53.75 Brief thoughts... -Akins was tremendous, lots of velocity, and they played the heck out of Pines of Rome. Many nice soloists, especially the flute solo. This is a very good show all the way through, and it demands attention from the first note to the last. -Cedar Park (Exhibition Band)--This show is incredible. Shostakovich Sym. No.10 and Fire of Eternal Glory are good music choices that showcase these great players. The ensemble sound is so very well balanced, controlled, and focused. Great brass chords with good dynamic contrast/control. The woodwinds are amazing! The runs are clean and, of course, ridiculously hard. I don't know if I've ever heard so many notes from a marching woodwind section. The marching is very clean with some good velocity and intricacy, as well.

The Westlake schedule, according to the Round Rock Band website: 11:30 Carrizo Springs 11:45 Pearsall 12:00 Medina Valley 12:15 Llano 12:30 Hondo 1:15 McCallum 1:30 Vista Ridge 1:45 Hendrickson 2:00 Dripping Springs 2:45 Georgetown 3:00 Harlingen 3:15 Pflugerville 3:30 Connally 3:45 San Antonio Southwest 4:00 Alvin 4:15 San Antonio O

This was a nice contest. I enjoyed a lot of the bands today. My favorite band of the day was Hendrickson. WOW! The music, the marching, the guard, the woodwinds, the brass, the percussion--all great. The show concept and use of Bach's Little Organ Fugue are cool as well. They did a fine job hosting this event, too.

According to the Newman Smith Band website the following bands are entered at the Tournament of Champions: Ranchview Frisco Wakeland Dallas Jefferson Frisco Centennial Fort Worth Western Hills Mansfield Timberview Argyle Grand Prairie Denton Ryan Cedar Hill Arlington Lamar Plano Shepton Carrollton Turner Arlington Seguin Birdville Weatherford Colleyville Heritage Justin Northwest Sachse Rowlett South Grand Prairie Grapevine Flower Mound North Crowley Mansfield Arlington Bowie Hebron Carrollton Creekview Plano East Coppell According to the USSBA website, the following bands are entered at USSBA Hendrickson: Austin Bowie Manor Taylor Elgin Dripping Springs Bastrop A&M Consolidated Lake Travis Austin High Austin LBJ Leander Pflugerville Hays Hendrickson

Can we do predictions for these competitions scheduled for September 30? --Tournament of Champions, Carrollton --USSBA @ Hendrickson HS, Pflugerville

What shows do you really love, but feel like we never talk about them? Which shows don't receive quite the adoration that you feel that they deserve? For me, one show is Westfield 2005--Wake From Your Sleep. I really enjoyed this show. It had all kinds of neat stuff ...high velocity, difficult drill, nice woodwind runs, an interesting concept, a gorgeous flute solo, and an absolutely stellar drumline. The show was very intense, but the choreography and interesting music choices kept it very audience friendly. The run around and fall-down ending while the drumline just plays more and more intensely is very entertaining. This show is a gem.

Here's the whole list: Westwood- 1 Westlake- 1 Cedar Park- 1 Crockett- 2 Georgetown- 1 Bowie- 1 San Marcos- 2 Leander- 1 Round Rock- 1 Akins-1 Bastrop- 2 Pflugerville- 2 Stony Point- 1 Hays- 1 Austin- 1 Anderson- 1 McNeil- 2 Every band had some really nice elements in their shows. I enjoyed all the performances, especially Bowie and Westlake- WOW!